In September we were lucky to spend an evening in conversation with Michael Rosen reminiscing about his early life in Pinner. Michael is best known for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. He served as Children’s Laureate from 2007 until 2009 and is host of to ‘Word of Mouth’ on BBC Radio 4.
Michael was interesting and very amusing. His ability to recall minute details about his schoolfriends, teachers, local shops and adventures were amazing.
Michaels parents grew up in the East End of London, his mother in Bethnal Green and his father in Whitechapel. His father was born in the US however came to London aged 2 years. Even so, when war broke out, he was enlisted in the US Army and served from 1945 to 1947. As a result of the rise of Oswald Mosley’s British Fascist party they joined the Communist Party. During the war, they were driven out of the East End by the bombing. His father, a schoolteacher, started teaching at Harrow Weald Grammar School. In a random conversation on the Metropolitan train, he said to a stranger he had nowhere to live. That stranger turned out to be Richard Sandridge, who worked for Curry’s Estate Agents. The flat, and all those on the corner of Bridge Street and Love Lane were owned by the proprietor of Maynard’s, the Sweet Shop. He offered them a flat in Pinner, somewhere his father had never heard of, at a very low ‘controlled rent’. And that’s how they ended up in Pinner
Michael was born in The Fir’s Nursing Home in Harrow in 1946 and lived in Bridge Street and Love Lane Pinner until 1962. His earliest memories took us back to his home at 6A Love Lane above a solicitors named Norman & Butt. He remembered being told by his father that Norman had the ideas but Butt?
Next door to the solicitors was Cosmo Café, now ZaZa’s, where he ate on occasions. They possessed an automatic potato peeler and chip maker which he could see from their kitchen window, in his view the machines were magic. He remembered the marble counter, and the ones in Sainsburys and International Stores. That triggered his memory of the payment system in International Stores. You would buy at a counter and the payment chitty would be attached and transported to the cashier by an overhead ‘train’. The cashier was Mrs Calbert, whose son became a good friend.
At the end of the row of shops was a builder’s merchants, L G Dyers. At the rear the tradesmen would prepare their work, the carpenters sawing, the plumbers soldering, and he would watch them working. Their nickname for him was ‘Bubbles’, referring to his curly hair which reminded them of the child on the Pears soap advertisements.
Michael painted a comprehensive picture of Pinner in the early 1950’s. The Ogle Sisters who ran the Eileen Ogle School of Dancing, Babbett’s Baby Wear, The Electricity Service Centre, now Café Nero, Bunting’s second-hand book shop, and many more.
He painted a vivid picture of life at 6A Love Lane. It was a comfortable home if somewhat eccentric. His parents were avid readers and book collectors, all the rooms in the house had stacks of books, even in the loo. Many were bought from Bunting’s and turned out to be far more valuable than poor Mr Bunting realized. They also had reproductions of well-known paintings on the walls. Osbert Lancaster’s cartoons, and Netherlandish Proverbs which contained ‘naughty bits’. When friends went to the flat, they would ask ‘Rosie’, their nickname for him, can we come over and see the ‘naughty bits’? Even now Michael has mementoes from Pinner in his study, the brown Bakelite light switch from the living room, his father’s desk and a pebble from the alleyway where he played cricket with his brother.
He loved the idea of living in Metroland, a special place. He remembers the brass handles on the old brown Metropolitan Railway carriages, with ‘Live in Metroland’ on them. His mother also liked Pinner, particularly the parks where they walked on Sundays. His father was not so keen. They would walk past the 1930’s half-timbered houses and point and say ‘phoney-baloney’.
Michael’s first experience of school was Tyneholme Nursery School in Harrow. His mother worked at Kodak as a shorthand typist. She saw a government advertisement for teacher training, applied, and was sent to Little Gadstone for training dropping him off on her way. His teacher was Miss Hornby, or Hornby Teacher, who he was in love with. At an early meeting with Hornby Teacher, she asked his mother if it was ok for Michael to say Grace before a meal. His mother replied, of course, why? Hornby Teacher replied, I ask the boys to stand, put their hands together and say grace. Michael refuses to stand or put his hands together and shouts ‘no thank you Lord’! Early signs of rebellion. He also recalled not being able to sleep on the ex-army camp beds with the ‘hairy’ ex-army blankets. Michael stayed in correspondence with Hornby Teacher until her death and is now in touch with her grandson.
His next school was Pinner Wood where he spent 3 years. He recalled his teachers, Mrs Thomas, Mrs Hurst and Miss Howlett. He recalled a boat trip down the Thames to celebrate the Coronation and having to learn the sea shanty Shenandoah to sing on the trip, somewhat inappropriate for a trip on the Thames. He also remembered dancing around the maypole and being shouted at ‘you are going the wrong way Michael’. It was here Michael met his best friends for the first time, Harribo.
After 3 years he became a founder pupil at West Lodge School. The new school was built for the increasing numbers of ‘Baby Boomers’ after the war. On being shown the picture of his class, Michael was able to name nearly every member of his class many of whom he is still in touch with. He remembered his time at West Lodge fondly and his teachers Miss Goodall, and Miss Williams. He was not always a perfect pupil. Once during a school inspection, they were tested by the inspector about Holland, which they had learnt about. After answering the obvious questions, what do the Dutch eat? Cheese. What do they grow? Daffodils. What buildings? Windmills. The inspector asked ‘what is the name of the Queen? All he could remember was his friend Harribo’s rhyme, ‘Queen Juliana is a fat banana’. Luckily, he tailed off before the end and the inspector was impressed, as was teacher. Michael has returned to the school on occasions, to open a library in his name and to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its opening. At one visit he was presented with the cane used on him by the headmaster Mr Baggs, now a memento in his study.
He talked about adventures walking across what was the West Park to school, the air-raid shelter he and Harribo broke into, just behind the Village Hall, before it was cemented over. The ‘pig man’ who lived on the edge of the park with his enormous white pig, skating on the pond in the winter, and the British Restaurant where they went to eat on occasions.
Michael remembers the stress of the 11plus created. Every week Miss Williams would change the seating to reflect their test results. She would stand in the middle of the room and say, you on this side will pass, however you on the other side will fail. He would have sleepless nights worrying about it until his mother told him about the unfair process for passing. In areas with more Grammar School places, such as Harrow, more people passed. Despite more girls passing, the places were distributed 50:50 between boys and girls. And the clincher, there was the ‘Headteachers’ recommendation’. Whether it was for any of these reasons or not, Michael passed and went to Harrow Weald Grammar, the school his father once taught at.
Michael talked about his time Harrow Weald briefly and painted a picture of his eccentric and sometimes frightening teachers. Mr Halfpenny, nickname ‘shove’, his atheist Religious Instruction teacher, his Nazi PE teacher who would follow them on cross country runs in his Ford Popular bellowing at them through a megaphone, and Merlyn Reece who later became Home Secretary. Michael went on to Watford Boys Grammar School to take A-levels, although looked back with most fondness on his schooldays at Nursery school in Wealdstone, Primary Schools in Pinner and Grammar School in Harrow Weald.
It was a fascinating evening with far too many interesting and funny stories to recount in full. The Society recorded the Talk, and we hope to be able to share it with Members in the future.
Michael posted on Facebook the following day. Amongst his entries he posted was this one:
